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SAFELY EMBRACING CULTURE: THE ADEQUACY OF THE CULTURAL SAFETY PARADIGM... This paper explores the ethical considerations of the cultural safety paradigm in a Canadian and American context. Specifically, I critique the ways in which the paradigm succeeds and fails to provide for the needs of Indigenous persons by way of striving for cultural understanding. Through my analysis, I demonstrate that, although the paradigm improves on its predecessors, it enforces the same colonial ideals it aims to avoid. As such, I suggest that we revise and reconsider how healthcare should frame a pursuit of Indigenous cultural understanding. CULTURAL SAFETY THE PARADIGM The term “cultural safety” originates from the work of a small group of Maori (New Zealand Indigenous) nursing students in 1992.** While attending nursing school, this group of students grew increasingly concerned about their social and intellectual safety amongst their peers. The vast majority of these peers were descendants of British colonists, and the culture they exhibited and embodied was oppressively settler-focused. In other words, these Maori students not only felt that their voices fell on deaf ears, but also that the foundations of their nursing education relied on principles that were established with the colonial oppression of Indigenous persons in mind. At the same time, New Zealand was experiencing a rapid influx of Maori individuals into urban centres,”* many of whom did not trust formal healthcare services to adequately care for their needs for the very same reasons that the Maori students felt unsafe.? This confluence of factors generated a great deal of tension between Maori individuals and New Zealand’s formal healthcare services. However, the groups found themselves at an impasse. On one hand, it was clear that New Zealand’s healthcare system needed to address its inadequate treatment of Maori individuals for the sake of their patient’s health and safety. On the other, the core operational principles of their healthcare provision (e.g., respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence, etc.: the very same principles used in North American healthcare) are, despite their implicit tendencies towards colonial ideals, good principles that should not be completely thrown out. To appeal to both hands, the aforementioned nursing students got to work Carrie Bourassa — Eric Oleson — Janet McElhaney, Cultural Safety, 2016, [in press]. Marcie Snyder — Kathi Wilson, Urban Aboriginal Mobility in Canada: Examining the Association with Health Care Utilization, Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 75, No. 12 (2012), 2420. Thomas Harding, Cultural Safety: A Vital Element for Nursing Ethics., Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2013), 4-11. + 249 +
